Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon

SHANGHAI, May 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon called for a stronger targeted backing to Afghanistan over forthcoming withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from the country, the Tajik presidential press service cited the Tajik leader as saying on Wednesday at a summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) which opened in the Chinese city of Shanghai.

“We should not let suffering Afghanistan to face its problems alone. Our common task is to intensify, with the help of the UN, a targeted support to Afghan people to realize their aspirations and hopes for peace, justice and development,” Rakhmon noted. “Afghan people should feel with a new strength our solidarity which should be substantiated with a long-term international aid,” he believes. The Tajik leader said, “Only under this condition, we will be able to see again an independent and peaceful, free of terrorism and drug crimes, prosperous Afghanistan.” Emomali Rakhmon recalled that “Tajikistan have the longest border of more than 1,300 kilometres with Afghanistan.” “Dushanbe cannot but be concerned over security problem within its frontiers and in the region as a whole,” he added.

As for the CICA summit agenda, the Tajik president noted importance of discussed questions, because “problems emerging in one part of the Asian continent reflect in the other part.” “Problems of poverty and unemployment, particularly among young people, international terrorism, drug trafficking and trans-border crime continue to remain our common concern,” he said. “On the one hand, globalization opened up possibilities for economic growth, on the other hand, new threats and challenges hampering joint development and prosperity appeared,” Rakhmon added.

The Tajik president praised a new level of cooperation between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency paving “a path to settlement of all questions related with the Iranian nuclear program.”

“For his part, Tajikistan is prepared to participate actively in a creative process and contribute to promotion of goals and tasks to build up inter-Asian confidence measures in military and political, economic, humanitarian and other spheres,” Rakhmon added.